We can no longer trust that survey responses are coming from real people.”

Guess I'm watching a Mira Nair movie tonight

my paper with my colleague and friend Victoria Tran is finally out!

There may be no atheists in foxholes, but there plenty of agnostics in badger setts. And don't get me started all the freethinking that goes on in rabbit warrens

FREE TO READ Andrew Chalfoun, Giovanni Rossi, & Tanya Stivers show that everyday requests are made with an optimistic stance. Across seven language communities, people ask as if the answer will be “yes,” revealing a pervasive optimism bias in routine interaction. Read more at bit.ly/4oKjWWs

When we ask for something big—time, effort, money—do we hedge against rejection or assume success? With @gio-rossi.bsky.social & Tanya Stivers, we find that people are incurably optimistic, even though big requests often meet resistance. Published open access in @socquarterly.bsky.social. #EMCA

So glad to get to see Whooping Cranes today! Photo credit goes to @lenayeakey.bsky.social

JUST IN: President Trump has told top U.S. commanders that the military would be used against "enemy within."

Man, for someone who can't follow a football game, I sure do use a lot of sports references

Nothing but love for reviewers who say, "I have principled objections to some of the positions taken in this paper, but it's a good paper that should be published anyway."

This is three decades late but the Duran Duran version of "Lay Lady Lay" is absolutely awful

My research has been documenting growing support for political violence across the political Left since January. Here are data from participants at all of the major protests in 2025:

In Our Time is an incredible show! My college roommate played us "The Gin Craze" episode during dinner and I've been hooked ever since.

My betrothed is REFUSING to use a passage from Song of Songs at our wedding just because the reader would say "my nard gave forth its fragrance." Like, isn't that the whole reason to use it??

Once again, seems like we might want to just get rid of the Nobel Peace Prize altogether

Grading is never what I'd call "fun" but sometimes students make mistakes that reveal problems with the original arguments in the assigned readings that I would never have caught on my own.

Excited that my article 'Levels of Legibility: Roles and the Flow of State Information in French Morocco' is now out in Social Science History! The paper shows how French administrators' internal communications transformed environmental knowledge and practices in Morocco dx.doi.org/10.1017/ssh....

I have one more presentation during #ASA2025! On Monday at 2pm come listen to me talk about how conflict between Christian Right activists and Southern Baptist missionary executives led to bureaucratic centralization that no one wanted: tinyurl.com/29czdf2q

Calling all early birds! Check out this great session at the Association for the Sociology of Religion on Sunday at 8:30. I'll be presenting a piece of my book project on covert evangelism and international missions. Hope to see you there!

Happening in a few minutes!

If you're going to be in Chicago tomorrow (August 6) come to the Voco hotel at 11am to catch my presentation, "Typical Expectations and the Moral Order: Talcott Parsons, Harold Garfinkel, and the Sticky Problem of Meaning" at the Society for the Study of Symbolic Interaction @sijournal.bsky.social!

1/ 📘 Book alert! 🚨 After a long gestation, extensive rewriting, a complex production process, and life getting in the way, it’s finally out* ➡️ doi.org/10.1093/oso/...

Listening to a truly awful college band and forcing myself to remember that we need to support bad musicians so that a few of them have opportunities to turn into good musicians

We rented a Kia EV6 for vacation and I went from "electric cars are a good thing and I'd like to get one when I can afford it" to "electric cars are a dangerous boondoggle that sucks resources from public transit" in about 12 hours

Amazing: MIT researchers revealed how ChatGPT etc are destroying our brains and booby-trapped the report to expose those who want to use AI to ostensibly summarize the results. t.co/JXeTALBPds

If you encounter what seems like an implausible survey finding, ask: 1. Were survey respondents selected randomly or was this an opt-in poll? 2. Could the results, especially for young adults, be driven by bogus respondents? Keep this post in mind: www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/...

Rank and file mainline Protestants are not liberal. They've never been liberal. They are moving increasingly towards the Republican party. Please stop saying "liberal mainline."

"On one test, the hallucination rates of newer A.I. systems were as high as 79 percent."

Some theorists (I'll leave the specific person unnamed) are such terrible writers that only a few minutes with their books will drive me back to whatever I was using reading to procrastinate about

Is this post-christianity?

One thing that bugs me about evangelical ministries is their tendency to jump the gun on Easter. It's Good Friday! Be sad!

I don't agree with most of Derek Parfit's philosophy but one thing he got absolutely right is that Anthony Trollop is just dull enough to be good bedtime reading

I wonder why I keep thinking about Fred Block's work this week.

Book launch tomorrow! @kevinawhitehead.bsky.social @raymond-sociology.bsky.social and I will be talking about Categories in Social Interaction with discussants Ann-Carita Evaldsson & Jason Turowetz - 14.00 PDT & 22.00 BST in person and online (ucsb.zoom.us/j/7574427215) #EMCA

Columbo: a TV tutorial in why to never talk to cops

If Australia can have an Emu war I suppose we can have a penguin trade war.

Andrew Chalfoun reviews 'Heathen: Religion and Race in American History' by Kathryn Gin Lum. readingreligion.org/978067497677...

New from me: A review of Mission Manifest by Matthew K. Shannon for @readingreligion.bsky.social! readingreligion.org/978150177594...

I’m really excited to share that the first article from my dissertation has been published in Social Currents! Using the Southern Baptist “conservative resurgence” as a case study, I argue that how movements select representatives significantly impacts their ability to secure concessions. (1/6)

I love Sheetz but blue raspberry cold brew crosses a line

I love museums that are open late! Great first day of spring break in Cleveland.

During Lent, I'm watching a whole bunch of film depictions of Jesus/Christianity, starting with Scorsese's Last Temptation. What are your suggestions for what I should include?

I dunno, it looks pretty weasel-y to me

I'm currently serving on the Publications Committee for SSSR, and we've been tasked to find the next Editor-in-Chief of the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion. If you're a scholar of religion interested in leading this highly regarded, interdisciplinary journal, please apply!

Happening today!

I'm really excited to be heading to the University of New Hampshire on Tuesday to give this talk on action ascription and speech act theory! There's a Zoom option (link in the comments) so come check it out on March 4 at 12:45pm EST. #emca

Of course, you're more likely to actually see an eagle in Kansas City

I've found a new coping mechanism: look at animal photos for the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources! www.zooniverse.org/projects/zoo...

Sure, I forgot my charger on campus and had to spend an extra 40 minutes doubling back. But at least I had a good audiobook to listen to.

Bourdieu really has the worst figures in the world